Archive for August, 2009

« Older Entries

Nuked RFID Life Expectancy

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

This post is one in a series dedicated to deeper analysis of the W1N5T0N annotated version of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, particularly to my own annotations.1

SPOILER WARNING *** If you haven’t read Little Brother, go read it (at least through Chapter 2) first. The following contains spoilers. ***

The chapter 1-2 transition of Little Brother involves Marcus, the main character, trying to skip school with his friend Darryl, who realizes to their dismay that he was still in possession of a library book that contains an RFID (“arphid”) tracking chip. The chip was not only used to keep track of the books, but was also used by the school to identify students who skipped class. Once the book passed through the school perimeter, Darryl’s book would be identified by the arphid as leaving school grounds, and Darryl would eventually get in trouble.2

Marcus determines that he cannot “hide” the chip by way of a Faraday pouch, and in chapter 2, figures that his only option is to “nuke” the chip by popping it in the teacher lounge microwave. Marcus asserts that “30 seconds in a microwave will do in pretty much every arphid on the market.”3

Heliosxx, a commenter on W1N5T0N asked: “Isn’t 30 seconds a bit much? Wont they burn out in just a couple of seconds?”4

I immediately thought: “Good questions.” And I set about to try to figure it out.5

Here’s the relevant paragraph from the text and the comment I came up with. Enjoy!

Little Brother, Chapter 2, Paragraph 9

That left me with only one option: nuking the thing. Literally. 30 seconds in a microwave will do in pretty much every arphid on the market. And because the arphid wouldn’t answer at all when D checked it back in at the library, they’d just print a fresh one for it and recode it with the book’s catalog info, and it would end up clean and neat back on its shelf.

Procrustes’ comment to Little Brother, Chapter 2, Paragraph 9

According to Instructables, it would only take 5 seconds in a microwave to destroy an RFID chip. However, Little Brother indicates that 30 seconds is sufficient to destroy “pretty much every” RFID on the market. RFID manufacturers often post operating temperature ranges, and one example of a high rated transponder indicates that it can sustain temperatures of 428°F for 30 seconds.

Microwave power/temperature correlations vary by model, but one source sites a model with 650-800 watts of power generating 425-500°F at 90-100% power.

At first glance, to safely assume an RFID chip will be destroyed by a microwave of unknown wattage, 30 seconds appears to be the minimum “safe” time. However, microwave object temperature does not immediately reach the top temperature. Wattage affects how quickly temperatures of materials are reached, and thus 30 seconds is not the literal minimum safe time for the chip linked to as an example above. Instead, it is the minimum safe time once the object has reached that temperature. It’s unlikely that Marcus would have been able to nuke the 428°F rated chip in just a few seconds at what was probably a low-wattage microwave, but that also may depend on exactly how the RFID chip materials are affected by microwaves.

Also, it is questionable whether “temperature” is a good gauge of how a microwave affects its occupants. According to some of the comments on the Built on Facts Science Blog, temperature is not a meaningful measure in microwaves because radiation inside a microwave does not have a thermal spectrum. However, for purposes of determining whether an RFID chip would survive, it should be sufficient that objects subjected to microwaves attain a certain measurable temperature. If the RFID chip in Little Brother was rated to 428°F for 30 seconds, then the microwave holding the chip must cause the temperature of the RFID chip to reach and at least maintain a temperature of 428°F for 30 seconds for the chip to at least void its warranty. But just because a chip is rated such does not mean it will necessarily be fully destroyed after reaching the rating maximum.
It’s quite possible that, depending on the wattage of the microwave, it would require even a longer time in the microwave to “ensure” destruction.

Chip and housing material would also have an effect on whether any microwave would be sufficient. Considering the RFID chips in the book were designed to prevent students from skipping school, it’s unlikely that the school would spend the amount of money necessary to buy chips that could survive nuking for more than a few seconds. Note that the book does not say exactly how many seconds were used to destroy the RFID book chip, though the sparks suggest that the chip died (however, some metals cause sparking in microwaves that may be mistaken for destruction). (The “conscientious” wrapping of a book in paper towels, however, was a tremendous fire hazard unless the paper towels were wet.)

The material of the RFID chip would affect the temperature, as indirectly demonstrated by a patent application for Microwave susceptor film to control the temperature of cooking foods (Under Detailed Description of the Invention, see notes for FIG. 4, describing the author’s representative plot of the coefficients of reflected, transmitted, and absorbed microwave energy as a function of resistivity). The USDA has also noted that wrapping foods in aluminum foil will act as a shield, since microwaves cannot pass through metal. This fact would suggest that if an RFID were wrapped in a similar protective metal that doesn’t interfere with the chip’s ability to operate, it might be extremely resistant to microwaves.

A patent issued in 2001 describes a High temperature RFID tag that, according to the patent, can survive at 275°F, but with a housing that would survive at 572°F “without substantially affecting the intended functions of the tag.”

Thus, there are multiple factors involved in determining whether an RFID chip would become disabled due to exposure to microwaves in a microwave oven.
1. Microwave wattage (relates to the time necessary for an object to reach a certain temperature).
2. Time in microwave (at low wattage, more time may be necessary).
3. RFID chip materials (some chips are designed specifically to survive in harsh conditions).
4. RFID chip housing materials (it’s possible that some chips would be designed with microwave-resistant housing).

In the book’s scenario, the main character is giving a bit of “playing it safe” advice based on that character’s limited knowledge of RFID chips, but it’s likely that there exist chips that would have survived a 30-second nuking, especially considering the microwave and RFID housing used.

For the fun of it, see the USDA’s “Time-to-Boil Test” for microwave ovens to determine wattage:

Measure a cup of water in a 2-cup glass measure. Add ice cubes; stir until water is ice cold. Discard ice cubes and pour out any water more than 1 cup. Set the microwave on high 4 minutes, but watch the water through the window to see when it boils.

* If water boils in less than 2 minutes, it is a very high wattage oven 1000 watts or more.
* If water boils in 2½ minutes, it is a high wattage oven about 800 watts or more.
* If water boils in 3 minutes, it is an average wattage oven 650 to 700 watts or more.
* If water boils in more than 3 minutes or not by 4 minutes, it is a slow oven 300 to 500 watts.

  1. Applicable Creative Commons License information. [<]
  2. See Chapter 1, paragraphs 102-104. [<]
  3. See Chapter 2, paragraphs 8-11. [<]
  4. See Paragraph 9 annotations. [<]
  5. Disclaimer: I am not a scientist. I do have a healthy technology background, but I’m by far not an expert. Others out there are much more qualified to make such determinations, and I’ve done what I can to seek those determinations out and compile them into an at least somewhat plausible comment. Also, don’t try this at home. [<]

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Little Brother, Science, Technology | No Comments »

Fan-Annotated Little Brother

Monday, August 24th, 2009

BoingBoing announced today that a wiki-style Little Brother (by Cory Doctorow) fan-annotated website has gone live at W1N5T0N.

I read Little Brother, and I really liked it. I think it should be on the required reading list for all teens and most adults and young adults who like tech fiction or have a desire to indulge their “more real than you’d think” conspiracy/techpocalypse fantasies. If you haven’t read it, I strongly suggest downloading it and devouring it. Perhaps, like me, you’ll then immediately start reevaluating your passwords and data protection.

I popped over to the W1N5T0N annotation site and noticed that it really must have just gone live recently, for out of 21 chapters and some appendices, there were only 13 comments thus far. To keep the spam down, comments are moderated, and I am guessing that a number of them are probably in queue, especially following BB’s announcement.

I read a few of the comments, and then I read the about/objectives page, and I immediately wanted to start annotating. I’ve done a bit of annotating on this blog as well as in the legal world, and I like it. When reading cases, it was always the footnotes that most captivated me. So, I set about finding a paragraph1 that I wanted to examine.

My first stop brought me to Chapter 2, Paragraph 3,

“I’m thinking of majoring in physics when I go to Berkeley,” Darryl said. His dad taught at the University of California at Berkeley, which meant he’d get free tuition when he went. And there’d never been any question in Darryl’s household about whether he’d go.

My recent oft-misunderstood DNA satire article focused on a sculpture in Berkeley (although the basis for the satire was elsewhere with an analogous sculpture), so I thought I would redeem myself by doing a comment on the basics of a Berkeley education in physics. I would also research to see whether Cory Doctorow had some relationship with the school, thus giving him the seed for the character. I got as far as finding a mysterious other Doctorow person, apparently with a PhD in something like physics or math, before I started having second thoughts. Was I really on the level of all the techies who get into this stuff and disassemble everything they touch, like a follower of the Owner’s Manifesto? Would people laugh at my feeble attempt to gather information that someone else likely possesses in greater excess and detail? Probably.

So, I paused for a bit, thought about it, and then urged myself to look again and find a paragraph that held more interest to me. And I think I found one in Chapter 1, Paragraph 104:

But it also lets the school track where you are at all times. It was another of those legal loopholes: the courts wouldn’t let the schools track us with arphids, but they could track library books, and use the school records to tell them who was likely to be carrying which library book.

Now this paragraph has appeal. Legal issues with RFID tagging students!2 The first thing that crossed my mind was, “I wonder if they have actually tried this in the US.” It didn’t take me long to find out, and before a few minutes had passed, I was well on my way toward a fair sized comment supporting Doctorow’s text.3

Of course, my comment is still being moderated, so I thought I would write a blog post about the concept and share my thoughts. Then it hit me that I could do more than that. I could cross-comment! In other words, assuming it doesn’t violate any of the copyright restrictions on W1N5T0N,4 I will be citing the paragraphs here that I comment upon, and posting my comments here as well as there. I’ll be using the Little Brother category I just created. I think it’ll be fun and perhaps informative. There’s a lot of info out there, and Doctorow’s book highlights a lot of ways that tech can be and is abused.

So, without further banter from myself to myself, here is, again, my first attempt at annotating a paragraph from Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother.5

Chapter 1, Paragraph 104:

But it also lets the school track where you are at all times. It was another of those legal loopholes: the courts wouldn’t let the schools track us with arphids, but they could track library books, and use the school records to tell them who was likely to be carrying which library book.

Annotation by Procrustes:

In 2005, the Northern California school district of Brittan established an RFID tracking system for students, to track attendance and identify trespassers. The program was opposed by many parents and the ACLU. (See School RFID Plan Gets an F, at Wired; Privacy Rights Are At Risk – Parents and Civil Liberties Groups Urge School District to Terminate Use of Tracking Devices, at ACLU of Northern California; and Keep RFIDs Out of Public Schools, at EFF.)

The ACLU of Northern California, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse all helped draft legislation in California to limit RFID.

The RFID supplier for the Brittan school district, InCom Corporation, retracted its agreement to provide the RFID tracking system, according to a USA Today article (as noted at RFID Update), Company pulls out of contract to track students.

In October, 2007, InformationWeek reported that ten UK schoolchildren would be tracked with RFID chips in their school uniforms for a pilot program meant to make way for a behavioral reporting and attendance sytem. (See U.K. Kids Get RFID Chips In School Uniforms).

On December 12, 2007, ATT announced that it would offer RFID tracking for schools that would include tracking of buses, assets (like books), student attendance (on ID badges), and visitors. (See RFID Update’s article, AT&T Steps into RFID Student-Tracking Minefield.)

In 2008, the Rhode Island Middletown Public School system established a pilot program to put RFID tags on about 80 children’s school bags. The ACLU responded in ACLU ISSUES ALARM ABOUT MIDDLETOWN PLAN TO ELECTRONICALLY MONITOR SCHOOL CHILDREN.

  1. W1N5T0N is set up by chapter and then by paragraph; annotations are paragraph-centric, and there can be multiple comments per paragraph. [<]
  2. Another paragraph I considered was the prior (103) paragraph that identified the term “arphid” as being a term that Bruce Sterling insists everyone use instead of “RFID” or saying “Arr eff eye dee.” Bruce Sterling, of course, is the author of Mirrorshades, and is one of the founders of the science fiction cyberpunk movement. Look at this, I’m annotating my article on annotations! [<]
  3. Part of the site’s objective is to fact check the book in light of it being a speculative fiction that is supposed to be plausible. [<]
  4. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ [<]
  5. I hope they accept it! They did! [<]

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Activism, Government, Law, Little Brother, Review, Science, Technology | 3 Comments »

Obama finds hidden reference to God in the Constitution

Friday, August 21st, 2009

WASHINGTON DC — During President Obama’s conference call with dozens of faith leaders that provoked a 40-day campaign of religious activism in the form of prayer vigils, advertising, and more, the President revealed that he had uncovered undeniable proof that the nation’s founders intended to invoke the Christian god (“God”) in the U.S. Constitution.1

“It was a clerical manipulation intended to be found at the right moment,” said Obama of the Constitutional reference to God. “Just like ancient manuscripts were copied and recopied throughout the ages, creating and perpetuating early translation and other mistakes while hiding key messages from early religious leaders. The Declaration of Independence, for instance, was drafted and redrafted, and we actually put on display differing copies of what we think is the same document, and it is full of Masonic and other mysterious code.”2

Obama told the religious leaders that “I am my brother’s keeper,” referring to the biblical passage from Genesis where God asks Cain where his brother Abel was,3 and Cain replies, “I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?”4

Obama insisted that passing health care reform was a biblical mandate, a moral and ethical obligation established by God. Some critics have chided Obama’s decision to invoke the Christian god, but Obama was adamant that the Constitution clearly established the government as a Christian nation. When asked to clarify, Obama pulled his personal, redlined copy of the Constitution from his desk drawer and showed it to reporters attending the conference.

Upon viewing Obama’s copy, the religious experts on hand agreed that Obama had successfully spotted the name of God (Yahweh) spelled out clearly in the Constitution.

Compare for yourself:
yah-con
(Obama’s redlined copy)
const-unedited
(an unedited copy)5
Yahweh
(the Hebrew for Yahweh)

“Despite the fact that the language of the pre-God Constitution not only justifies, but also requires the U.S. government to reform health care for the welfare of America’s citizens,” Obama continued, “the biblical god, by way of the Constitution, demands it, so we must follow accordingly. Without our faith, this couldn’t be accomplished.”

A small minority of opponents still argue that prayer and religion have no place in government meetings, but Obama’s administration is well on its way to homogenizing the American religious point of view.

Up to this point, no one had been able to successfully find a pro-religious reference in the Constitution, and religious leaders worldwide have expressed their relief that the United States is finally falling into place among its fellow theocracies.

  1. Seriously, he more or less did. [<]
  2. This is absolutely true. See My Inalienably Unalienable Rights and Masonic signers. [<]
  3. Obviously a rhetorical question, since an omniscient being would already know the answer. [<]
  4. See Cain & Abel [<]
  5. I think it’s obvious from the intentionally drawn strong lines of “WE THE” compared to the rest of the Constitution that the author was trying to capture the attention of someone who would recognize how closely it and the Hebrew were matched. [<]

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Activism, Atheism, Government, Morality, Religion, Satire | 7 Comments »

Federal law prohibits “fake news” satire

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

WASHINGTON DC — A federal law taking effect Monday makes it illegal for anyone other than the New York based tabloid newspaper “The Onion” to publish in paper or electronic form any “parody or satire… representing, appearing to be, or in the form of real news.”

The law was initially proposed by Senator Lieberman, who infamously called for the censorship of YouTube last year. “This bill will guard our citizens against the threat of false and misleading ‘fake’ news,” Lieberman said when he introduced the bill in Congress earlier this year. “Freedom of expression is an important value, but protecting the nation from being misled, regardless of the intent behind it, takes a higher priority.”

Christopher Hitchens, noted atheist and contributor to Slate, commented that the law would unnecessarily taint freedom of the press and chill free speech. “Satires have been written by Ovid, Horace, Voltaire, Samuel Butler, George Orwell, Lewis Black, and innumerable others. There will be quite a bit of censorship in our future if this bill passes.”1

“This is bittersweet, like hot sauce on sliced pumpkin bread,” said The Onion editor Joe Randazzo after hearing of the bill’s passage. “The problem is, though, that I think Congress doesn’t realize that The Onion is a real news source. As real as Fox News, at any rate.”

According to the ACLU, “Freedom of speech is protected in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights and is guaranteed to all Americans.”

Concerns have arisen over how the government would enforce such a broad and expansive law. A review of the Congressional budget report relevant to the bill revealed that the government would take advantage of the Bush-era Protect America Act that removes restrictions on government access to service providers.2

Criticism has been made of the bill by some of The Onion’s competitors, including Humor Times and The Second Supper. Publisher Mike Keith of The Second Supper noted that the law creates an illegal monopoly for satirical news.

“Despite the good intentions of Senator Lieberman,” he said, “the effects of this law will not only put papers like mine out of business, but will also allow The Onion to jack up the prices of its paper and Internet subscriptions.”

When Senator Lieberman was asked about the potential for monopolization, he responded in an explanatory email, “That’s a non-issue. Everyone already assumes that any attempt at newslike satire is either from The Onion or is an attempt to be like The Onion. There’s no realistic existing competition, so the law doesn’t in fact change the marketplace structure of news satire such that it would produce a monopoly.”

When asked whether the law would prohibit news satire television shows like The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, Lieberman replied, “No, of course not. The law only affects news satire, not real news shows. Go read the bill, it’s quite plain.”

  1. Bravo to Hitchens for his criticism of Yale University Press‘ decision to remove images of Mohammed from a book about the Danish cartoons. [<]
  2. See SF Chronicle [<]

Posted in Government, Law, Satire | 1 Comment »

Biden refuses to fly in VP helicopter with atheist pilot

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

[Ed's note: You may not get the subtle nuances of this article, and that might make you get all up in arms and enraged. It's good to get enraged occasionally, but read everything first, and then make an informed decision. Everyone knows the old poem, Lady Ires the Wasp: "When distracted by the summer sky, upon the wasp she sat, ire caused the wasp to sting, the fire brought her back."]
bidenWASHINGTON DC, (Presidential Online Enquiry database) – Today, President Obama expressed his concern over the recent controversy involving Vice President Biden and an alleged atheist helicopter pilot. On Tuesday, Biden refused to allow his vice presidential helicopter pilot to take off, citing suspicions that the pilot was a non-believer.

“I saw him not praying or crossing himself before takeoff,” Biden said at a press conference today, “and it’s my firm belief that his atheism greatly increased the chances of us crashing. If God’s not on our side every step of the way, and every flight, too, then I don’t want to be on this side.”1

When questioned about the incident, President Obama suggested that he was considering suspending Biden for a short period of time. “Government employees must adhere to the First Amendment,” said Obama. “It sets a bad example of intolerance.”

We were unable to contact the helicopter pilot in question.

Biden’s wife said that White House officials knew about Biden’s convictions when he was elected.

“This has been his faith since his very first day on the job,” Jill Biden said. She said that making Biden fly in the helicopter would be telling him to be “like Janus, the two-face god, just because he wants to make a living.”

“In my opinion, it’s wrong to deny a person the ability to do his job because he has a belief,” she said.

A local DC attorney says that the White House may have violated Biden’s right to have his own religious beliefs.

Biden has a right to refuse to fly if the White House can reasonably accommodate a validly held religious belief, said Ted Pacine, a civil rights lawyer in DC. For example, the White House should have provided an alternate pilot of Biden’s religious belief, or should have let Biden work directly out of the White House without having to travel.

Pacine said that religious cases are tender and difficult, and should be handled with care, so as not to offend anyone.

Biden isn’t the only government employee who has refused to board a vessel piloted or driven by someone not overtly Christian. There have been multiple alleged cases of congressmen who have refused flights piloted by atheists, agnostics, and even Muslims.2

UPDATE: At the press conference, Biden was asked whether he would have also refused to fly if the pilot had been gay. His response has just come in: “Now, that’s not a fair question. Everyone knows that our pilots are military, and that gays are not allowed to serve in the military, at least openly. And I know I’ve never asked my pilots about that, though I do pay attention to whether they’re well-groomed or speak with a lisp.” 3

—

It’s not like I have anything against Biden… or the Pres… Or do I?4

  1. It’s unbelievable that someone would act like this. Right? [<]
  2. Honestly, after seeing all of them pile out of the Capitol to yell “Under God” while mumble-reciting the Pledge of Allegiance when that was the media issue du jour makes me wonder whether they do, indeed, screen their pilots, drivers, and others for religion. [<]
  3. This article is a tribute to people doing the right thing, despite being hounded by the RR. Brad Miller, you rock. [<]
  4. Okay, let’s be clear. This satire has absolutely nothing to do with Biden other than the fact that I can see him pulling such a stunt. What’s it got to do with? The original article of inspiration regards a Des Moines DART bus driver who was suspended because she refused to board and drive a bus that donned the “Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone” ad. The DART bus ads garnered a lot of controversy, being allowed, disallowed, and then allowed again to be displayed on buses. Despite the myriad pro-Christian ads that have donned those and other buses throughout the years without complaint, the moment a pro-atheist bus ad appears, the Christians attack. That’s not setting a good standard, and a few of the bus/metro operations have caved in to the religious pressure to remove the ads in favor of keeping customers happy and not “offended.” The Des Moines situation, on the other hand, is one of the few instances where the bus company didn’t play favorites, and for that, I’m impressed and grateful. My satire, though, focuses particularly on the “defense” of the bus driver being based on a “right” to practice religion that a Des Moines attorney claims should have trumped the bus company’s ability to display an ad that offended the driver, or at least have pandered to her religious preferences in some way. I thought it would be interesting to highlight that aspect — the “right not to be offended in the workplace” aspect — on a different scale to see what kind of reactions we’d get if one of the top executives of the government tried pulling the same whining routine. I was wondering if it’d be unrealistic — no way would the VP do that! But, yet again, I’m shown that it seems to be well within the scope of cynicism for many of us to believe that we’re that much closer to being a country that panders so much to the religious that we become more or less theocratic. Look at what Texas is doing, forcing its public school children to learn about the Old and New Testament. Remember how Obama and Biden, plus most of the Congress, have repeatedly invoked the god of one specific religion. Is it that different for Biden to have actually done the above from what Biden likely thinks to himself when he boards a helicopter? God bless the troops, and God bless America, kids. Say it to get votes, sure, but after you’re elected and you still say it… overkill. [<]

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Atheism, Government, Religion, Satire | 3 Comments »

« Older Entries